Kfar Yuval hostage crisis

Last updated

Kfar Yuval hostage crisis
Part of Palestinian insurgency in South Lebanon
Israel outline northeast.png
Red pog.svg
The attack site
Native nameהפיגוע בכפר יובל
Location Kfar Yuval, Israel
Coordinates 33°14′48″N35°35′53″E / 33.24667°N 35.59806°E / 33.24667; 35.59806
Date15 June 1975;48 years ago (1975-06-15)
Attack type
hostage-taking
Deaths3 Israelis (+ 4 attackers)
Injured3
Perpetrator Arab Liberation Front claimed responsibility
No. of participants
4

The Kfar Yuval hostage crisis, which took place during 15 June 1975, was a raid by a squad of Palestinian militants belonging to the Arab Liberation Front on the Israeli moshav of Kfar Yuval in which the militants took residents as hostages and attempted to bargain for the release of terrorists held in Israeli prisons. One person was killed during the takeover.

Contents

An IDF special unit freed the hostages and killed the four militants the same day. During the operation, an IDF soldier was killed, and his wife, one of the hostages, was fatally wounded.

Details of the attack

Moshav Kfar Yuval. Photo taken in 2011 Yuval952.jpg
Moshav Kfar Yuval. Photo taken in 2011

On 13 June 1975 a squad of militants belonging to the Arab Liberation Front militant organization crossed the border from Lebanon, heading towards the Israeli village of Kfar Yuval. The squad, which was hiding in the apple plantations of the village, was not detected by the security forces, although security had been reinforced in the village after the breach in the border fence was discovered. On the night of 15 June four militants infiltrated a house in the village. One of the family members, Nehemiah Joseph, who was an Armored Corps soldier, attempted to stop them, blocking the entry to the house doors by gathering furniture next to the door, but was killed by the militants immediately; the other people in the house were taken hostage.

After Israeli military forces arrived at the scene negotiations with the militants began, with the help of the local resident Rahamim Cohen, who volunteered for the job as he spoke fluent Arabic. The militants presented a proclamation with demands to release prisoners detained in Israeli prisons, including Archbishop Hilarion Capucci and Japanese militant Kōzō Okamoto.

Takeover operation

Yaakov Mordecai, the husband of hostage Simcha Mordecai and a combat soldier in the Golani Brigade in his army service, heard about the hostage-taking while on his way to work and quickly returned to the village, not knowing that his wife and 11-month-old son were among the hostages. He spoke with the commander of the northern command and demanded to be allowed to join the takeover force, mainly because he knew how the rooms in the house were laid out. The commander of the northern command accepted and Yaakov joined the takeover operation team.

As the force began breaking into the house they were shot at by the militants. Yaakov went ahead of the rest of the takeover team and charged into the house and shot two militants dead, but was himself killed by a grenade that also fatally injured his wife Simcha. The rest of the takeover force, encouraged by Mordechai's daring move, broke into the house and in the resulting exchange of fire, killed the rest of the squad.

Yaakov Mordecai was killed and Yitzhak Yosef-Chai, the father of the family taken hostage, and his son Avraham Yosef-Chai were seriously injured during the exchange of fire. Yaakov's wife Simcha was also injured, and died the next day in the hospital. Their infant son Assaf was saved because his mother hid him in a washing machine. Both Assaf and his brother Bezalel were wounded. [1]

Yaakov Mordecai was posthumously awarded the Medal of Courage.

Related Research Articles

This page is a partial listing of incidents of violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in 2003.

This page is a partial listing of incidents of violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in 2004.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ma'alot massacre</span> 1974 terrorist attack by Palestinian militants in Israel

The Ma'alot massacre was a Palestinian terrorist attack that occurred on 14–15 May 1974 and involved the hostage-taking of 115 Israelis, chiefly school children, which ended in the murder of 25 hostages and six other civilians. It began when three armed members of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) infiltrated Israel from Lebanon. Soon afterwards they attacked a van, killing two Israeli Arab women while injuring a third, and entered an apartment building in the town of Ma'alot, where they killed a couple and their four-year-old son. From there, they headed for the Netiv Meir Elementary School in Ma'alot, where in the early hours of 15 May 1974 they took hostage more than 115 people including 105 children. Most of the hostages were 14- to 16-years-old students from a high school in Safad on a pre-military Gadna field trip spending the night in Ma'alot. The hostage-takers soon issued demands for the release of 23 Palestinian militants and 3 others from Israeli prisons, or else they would kill the students. The Israeli side agreed, but the hostage-takers failed to get an expected coded message from Damascus. On 15 May, minutes before the 18:00 deadline set by the DFLP for killing the hostages, the Sayeret Matkal commandoes stormed the building. During the takeover, the hostage-takers killed children with grenades and automatic weapons. Ultimately, 25 hostages, including 22 children, were killed and 68 more were injured.

This page is a partial listing of incidents of violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in 2005.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Savoy Hotel attack</span> 1975 Palestinian attack against civilians in Tel Aviv, Israel

The Savoy Hotel attack was a terrorist attack by the Palestine Liberation Organization against the Savoy Hotel in Tel Aviv, Israel, on 5–6 March 1975.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yitzhar</span> Israeli settlement in the West Bank

Yitzhar is an Israeli settlement located in the West Bank, south of the city of Nablus, just off Route 60, north of the Tapuach Junction. The predominantly Orthodox Jewish community falls under the jurisdiction of Shomron Regional Council. In 2022, it had a population of 2,093.

The Mehola Junction bombing was the first suicide car bomb attack carried out by Palestinian militants and took place on 16 April 1993.

Yitzhak Shapira is an Israeli rabbi who lived in Kiryat Moshe neighborhood in Jerusalem, and is head of the Od Yosef Chai Yeshiva.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Killing of Rabbi Meir Hai</span> 2009 killing of Israeli settler by Palestinian militants in the West Bank, Palestine

On 24 December 2009, three Palestinian gunmen opened fire on a vehicle near Shavei Shomron in the West Bank, killing an Israeli settler. The Imad Mughniyeh Group, a little-known affiliate of the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, the armed wing of the Fatah party, claimed responsibility for the attack.

Events in the year 2002 in Israel.

Events in the year 1994 in Israel.

Events in the year 1975 in Israel.

Events in the year 1974 in Israel.

Events in the year 1970 in Israel.

Events in the year 1966 in Israel.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2002 Itamar attack</span> 2002 murder of an Israeli family in their home

The Itamar attack was an attack that took place on Thursday night of 20 June 2002 around 21:00 in which two Palestinian terrorists broke into a civilian house in the Israeli settlement of Itamar in the West Bank, killing the Shabo family, murdering a mother and her three sons, while injuring two children. Later on the militants also killed the commander of the rescue squad during his attempt to free civilians trapped in the house. The two gunmen were killed and eight Israelis were wounded when soldiers stormed the house. This was the second attack on Itamar in less than a month. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine claimed responsibility for the attack.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2011 southern Israel cross-border attacks</span> Series of cross-border attacks

On August 18, 2011, a series of cross-border attacks with parallel attacks and mutual cover was carried out in southern Israel on Highway 12 near the Egyptian border by a squad of presumably twelve militants in four groups. The attacks occurred after Israel's interior security service Shin Bet had warned of an attack by militants in the region and Israeli troops had been stationed in the area. The militants first opened fire at an Egged No. 392 bus as it was traveling on Highway 12 in the Negev near Eilat. Several minutes later, a bomb was detonated next to an Israeli army patrol along Israel's border with Egypt. In a third attack, an anti-tank missile hit a private vehicle, killing four civilians. Eight Israelis – six civilians, one Yamam special unit police sniper and one Golani Brigade soldier—were killed in the multiple-stage attack. The Israel Defense Forces reported eight attackers killed, and Egyptian security forces reported killing another two.

The Misgav Am hostage crisis, which began during the night of April 7, 1980, was a raid carried out by a squad of five Palestinian militants belonging to the Iraqi-backed Arab Liberation Front militant organization, on the northern Israeli kibbutz of Misgav Am in which the militants captured a group of toddlers and babies in the children's sleeping quarters of the kibbutz and held them as hostages. The event ended the next day with the takeover of the terrorist stronghold by Israeli special forces.

September 2012 southern Israel cross-border attack refers to an incident on 21 September 2012, when three Egyptian militants, wearing civilian clothes and armed with explosive belts, AK-47 rifles and RPG launchers, approached the Egypt-Israel border in an area where the Egypt–Israel barrier was incomplete, and opened fire on a group of IDF soldiers supervising the civilian workers who were constructing the border fence.

References

  1. "Israelis Seek to Adopt Child Whose Parents Terrorists Killed". Jewish Telegraphic Agency. 18 June 1975. Archived from the original on 3 April 2023.